Sunday 26th March 2006Lent 4
Fr David Cherry
Numbers 21 : 4 – 9 ; Ephesians 2 : 1 – 10; John 3 : 14 – 21
“For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before
ordained that we should walk in them.” From the epistle to the Ephesians this
morning
+ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen
Our conversation in the Lent Group has drifted into the deep
waters of sin and our woundedness. We
are thinking anthropologically and with a little help of psychological
diagrams. How we see sin is determined
very much by how we see our salvation history unfolding in the Bible and on the
Image of God we hold within ourselves.
Such images of God are set quite early on in life. Some of us are fortunate to receive a
positive affirming image of God from our mothers, our church, parents, peers
who inform us who God is for us early in life; others not.
Lent is a season where we are all invited into the light of
judgement, to see ourselves a little more clearly for who we are.
Gerard Hughes’ in his book, God of Surprises, talks about Uncle George who lives in a formidable
mansion and who is visited once a week.
He is a great and important friend of the family, interested in all the
details of their lives. He is severe and
he tells children he wants to see them there every Sunday and introduces them
to a nightmarish vision of hell with unearthly screams in his basement. ‘Now look there’, says Uncle George; ‘if you
don’t visit me that is where you will most certainly go.’ These children return home clutching their
parents’ hands, and are asked: ‘And now don’t you love Uncle George with all
your heart and soul, mind and strength?’
And, loathing the monster, the children reply ‘Yes I do’. Religious schizophrenia has set in, a deep
wound, a double bind.
Another image of God is Santa Claus who is absent most of
the time, but appears now and then to give presents.
Most of us find ways of living with the alien god represented
by Uncle George, an idol of human authoritarianism, demanding duty and opposed
to our freedom or reassure ourselves with Santa Clause who is so remote he
isn’t particularly interested in us anyway.
To remain with such images is to remain in darkness. Obedience to the authoritarian Uncle George
will probably mean we will end up authoritarian ourselves, moralising about sin
and usually the sin of others – which makes one a total bore. Living with a Santa Claus god may mean one
is left adrift of any purpose in life.
“Where lies your landmark, seamark, or soul’s star?” asks Hopkins in On a Portrait
of Two Beautiful Young People.
St John
gives us two wounded people in the beginning of his gospel. A Samaritan woman, thought to be a heretic by
the Jews, spurned by the village because she is an adulterer. Excluded from the early morning gathering at
the well, she comes at noon in the heat of the day, alone. She comes in the light, the full glare of
day: judgement , exposed in her weakness and vulnerability. She has nothing to lose, already brought so
low in the estimations of others, resigned to her condemnation. Jesus draws her into a conversation – away
from the alien god of condemnation to a new faith in the living God who will
give her streams of living water of hope.
And St John
gives us the story of Nicodemus, the Pharisee of exacting obedience and
rectitude, a paragon of virtue and orthodoxy.
He cannot bear to come by day and comes at night. By day he is celebrated for who he is. He has much to lose: his very self, the
carefully weighed truths of his belief, the scrupulous manner of life. How can he be reborn? he wants to know.
It is to Nicodemus that the words of today’s gospel are addressed: you must
come into the Light, Nicodemus. I am
Light. And in my light you will find
that who you thought you were, the accumulated esteem of others, amounts to very little.
This light is judgement, seeing yourself ‘as you are’ is
judgment. Judgement is about seeing how
things actually are. To refuse or deny the truth
is to condemn yourself to live in
illusion.
And this is the
condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil.
Lent is a season where we are all invited into the light of
judgement, to see ourselves a little more clearly for who we are. God’s judgment is not the severe judgement of
Uncle George; neither the care-less judgment of a Santa Clause god.
It is about being seen with mercy: Iris Murdoch writes: “The great artist sees
his objects (and this is true whether they are sad, absurd, repulsive or even
evil) in a light of justice and mercy.
The direction of attention is, contrary to nature, outward, away from
self which reduces all to a false unity, towards the great surprising variety
of the world, and the ability so to direct attention is love.”¹
The light that Nicodemus and you are invited to inhabit is a
light of love which enables you and me to have the truth of who we are revealed
to us – to find our woundedness we can begin to find healing.
The serpent on a pole is a symbol of healing from ancient
times – two serpents in conflict, being brought into harmony. The bishop of London sometimes uses such a staff instead of
a shepherd’s crook (which I’ve always found rather spooky) but it is a sign of
healing – the healing effect that the truth of the gospel has on us.
And this, so that we may not perish in ignorance and
foolishness, but enjoy everlasting life – a life free from fear; free from
defence; free to love others.
We are all wounded human beings. Can the church be a community where healing
is found; where love can heal through acceptance and honesty; where each person
can discover an authentic relationship with the God who is utterly for us?
The church is often called ‘Holy Mother Church.’ Here on Mothering Sunday in the INTROIT ², Jerusalem is thought as a
Mother, suckling her young, comforting them, a place of belonging for all
people. This image of Jerusalem is in so many psalms and prophecies
– a place where the nations can gather together.
Can the church be an environment, a culture, where we can
own what is broken about ourselves in the truth of God’s light? So much church life can be a scheming in the
dark; power games and maneuverings. But
the culture of God’s light is about transparent truth, requiring vulnerability,
a capacity for generosity in disagreement, the ability to speak openly without
having a fit or having to stifle feelings and sulk. What a sign we will be to our society, to
Glentworth St, to ourselves. The
heavenly Jerusalem
among us.
Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is also known as the Mother of
the Church, no semi-deity, but a human who shows us (from the Annunciation
onwards) what it is like to co-operate with God as we are invited to – a
collaborator in God’s project. Today we
remember with love our Mothers, to whom we first belonged, who taught us what
it is to be dependant in relationship, trusting.
This transformative and restorative action of God within us
and among us, the Body of Christ is God’s gift as St Paul reminds us:
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
And to Our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be all
praise, the joy and love of our hearts, this day and for all eternity.
Amen
¹ Quoted in What is the Point of Being a Christian? : Timothy Radcliffe OP, p.124
² Rejoice ye with Jerusalem;
and be ye glad for her, all ye that delight in her : exult and sing for joy
with her, all ye that in sadness mourn for her; that ye may suck, and be
satisfied with the breasts of her consolations
